A downer: Pearly Tan (left) and M. Thinaah suffered a disappointing 21-23, 15-21 defeat to India’s world No. 19 Treesa Jolly-Gayathri Gopichand in the Group B tie at the Dubai Exhibition Centre.
PETALING JAYA: Nerves and lack of brazenness proved costly for national women’s doubles pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah in the Group B tie against India at the Asian Mixed Team Championships.
Hopes were high on world No. 5 Pearly-Thinaah to level the tie with Malaysia 1-2 down but the pair were far from their best and suffered a disappointing 21-23, 15-21 defeat to India’s world No. 19 Treesa Jolly-Gayathri Gopichand at the Dubai Exhibition Centre on Thursday.
“For me, Thinaah was very nervous during the match,” said doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky.
“All the shots from her were very safe, she was not brave enough.”
The defeat was Pearly-Thinaah’s first against Treesa-Gayathri in five meetings.
The former held a 20-18 lead in the first game but squandered the two game points.
It was a tie to forget for Malaysia, who eventually lost 1-4 with reigning men’s doubles champions Aaron-Chia-Soh Wooi Yik the only ones to get a point after beating scratch pair Chirag Shetty-Dhruv Kapila 21-16, 21-10.
Earlier, independent men’s singles player and world No. 4 Lee Zii Jia went down fighting 21-18, 13-21, 23-25 to world No. 9 H.S. Prannoy.
It was sweet revenge for Prannoy, who had lost to Zii Jia in their only previous encounter in the 2021 Thailand Open.
Zii Jia started the match well and kept his composure to win the first game but errors cost him dearly in the second.
In the decider, Prannoy raced to a 10-3 lead but Zii Jia did well to catch up and level at 13-13.
The latter also saved two match points at 18-20 but Prannoy managed to keep his composure to snatch the game.
The defeat added to Zii Jia’s woes after an underwhelming start to the year that saw him suffer early-round exits in the Malaysian Open, Indian Open and Indonesian Masters last month.
In the women’s singles, debutant and world No. 186 Wong Ling Ching gave her all but could not prevent world No. 9 P. V. Sindhu from winning 21-13, 21-17.
In the dead rubber mixed doubles match, world No. 48 Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei showed great fighting spirit and determination but lost out 19-21, 21-19, 16-21 to world No. 26 Ishaan Bhatnagar-Tanisha Crasto.
“We tried to perform like how we did in training and win the match but they did better than us.
“I think our team gave their best on court but unfortunately, it was not enough to win.
“We will focus on the quarter-finals and give 100 per cent,” said Ee Wei.
